[Reader-list] Pakistan: Cybercafe Crackdown May Trip Up Leering Boys (Ian Fisher)

[Harsh Kapoor]

The New York Times
August 1, 2002  

LAHORE JOURNAL
Cybercafe Crackdown May Trip Up Leering Boys
By IAN FISHER

LAHORE, Pakistan, July 27 - Shahid Masood is a bit down on the 
Internet these days. But he has never seen anyone who looks like a 
terrorist at the cybercafe he owns here.

Mostly he sees boys trying to see girls without their clothes.

"People do not use it in a positive manner," he said in this vibrant 
city with two universities and many students, who make for 
enthusiastic customers - if not always rich ones. "Most of the people 
access porn sites. Then it is e-mail and chat sites. Otherwise, there 
is not much usage of the Internet."

In this sense cybercafes in Pakistan are not too different from those 
in the rest of the world. But in this strict Islamic society of 
segregation between the sexes and strict bans on sexual content in 
the media, privacy on the Internet is highly prized. So there is more 
than a little worry about new government rules, set down in the name 
of fighting terrorism, that would keep track of cybercafe users.

Under the rules, Pakistan's thousands of unregulated cybercafes - 
often no more than a hot hallway with a few computers and no 
refreshments - will be required to register with the government. 
Then, starting a month from now, the cafes will have to ask every 
customer for proof of identity.

The idea is to provide a way of tracking terrorists and deny them the 
use of computers in perfect anonymity. But the Internet here is also 
a way for young people to do things society does not normally allow 
them, and any intrusion into this new zone of privacy could mean a 
huge drop in business, cybercafe owners and their customers say.

"How is it practical?" complained Azir Raziullah, 28, who owns the 
Web Zone cybercafe in a mall here with no fewer than seven of them. 
"If you go to a hair-cutting shop, do you show ID? If you go to a 
boutique and buy a shirt, do you show ID? What is the Internet? It's 
just business."

But it is, in fact, much more than just business, and some Internet 
users say they would not take the risk with their privacy in a 
country as confusing as Pakistan on the issue of personal freedom. 
Pakistan has, on the one hand, a famously outspoken press and fewer 
blocks on Internet sites than some Muslim countries - although one 
site used by Al Qaeda supporters was recently blocked.

Then again, it is possible to be stoned here for blasphemy.

"I don't think giving an ID is a good idea," said one young computer 
student who identified himself only as Atif. For one, he admits to 
occasional glimpses at pornographic sites. He would not like that 
fact known, much less traced.

Second, he regularly chats with young women online, women he normally 
could get nowhere near - mostly talking, with disappointing tameness, 
about the food they eat.

"It's a good service," he said earnestly. "It has affected my life. I 
get a lot of information," he added, and then smiled: "And when I 
want I can chat."

It is perhaps more risky for women. Kiran Anwar, 21, also a computer 
student, said she too has found the Internet a rewarding, and 
socially safe, way to talk to people she would not meet otherwise. 
She noted, however, that chatters seem to be major liars. Everyone 
she encounters online, it seems, is rich, attractive and from a good 
family.

"I think of it as fun, as enjoyment, as passing the time," she said. 
"There are no side effects to that. As long as we are just having 
chat - not meeting up."

And, she said, "It is very private."

Shahzada Alam, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, 
which regulates the Internet as well as mobile and fixed-line phones, 
said the rules are aimed at potential terrorists - not curious or 
lovesick teenagers.

Part of the concern, he said, arose after the disappearance in 
January of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter whose 
captors sent messages and photographs via e-mail, though apparently 
through home computers. Cybercafes, he said, are so far completely 
unregulated, a hole in Pakistan's national security that he said 
needed to be narrowed, though not closed completely. Requiring 
identification, he said, seemed like a gentle step.

"You have to have a balance, that is most important," he said. "If 
you over-control or over-regulate you will discourage people from 
using it. But if you keep it totally uncontrolled, it could be used 
by criminals."

That balance is a noble goal, said Mueen Sadiq Malik, chief executive 
of Paknet, the state-owned Internet provider, but not an easy one to 
put in place. He said that Paknet, one of the largest of the 100 
Internet service providers in Pakistan, has been the first required 
to register cybercafes and inform them that they must ask their 
customers for identification.

To begin complying, his workers have combed their records for heavy 
Internet users, one clue to which of his 100,000 customers are 
cybercafes. He has also sent his workers to the streets. So far, he 
said, they have learned that Internet cafes have spread with the same 
chaotic freedom as the Internet itself.

"In the ultimate analysis, it's not going to go too far," he said of 
the government plan.

He added that he does not think terrorists "depend on this as a major 
means of communication."

He continued: "You can place phone calls. You can use mobiles and 
keep changing them."

He smiled at the impossibility of halting communications, modern or 
not. "They could send pigeons across," he said.